Optical recording/playback of information has been made possible by developments in the areas of lasers and thermal record media. Recent developments have led to mass data storage systems utilizing a plurality of individually modulated laser beams to record information at extremely high data rates. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,212 issued May 15, 1984 to C. W. Reno, a multi-track record/playback apparatus is described. In the Reno apparatus the light beam from a single high power laser is split into a plurality of beams which are individually modulated and focused on the surface of a record medium. In general, systems of the Reno type require large, high power lasers which require external cooling. Furthermore, in these systems a modulator is provided to individually modulate each beam of the multiple beams being used for recording. For these reasons, prior art multi-beam systems tend to be bulky, low in efficiency, and difficult to modulate.
The development of semiconductor laser arrays is the first step to multi-channel optical recorders/players which overcome some of the problems of the prior art multi-channel systems. A diode laser array system is generally more compact, has higher efficiency, and requires no external modulation.